Holy City for sale

Holy City is up for grabs.
The 150-acre ghost town tucked into the San Jose side of the Santa Cruz Mountains is for sale, RE/MAX realtor Jim E. Miller said Tuesday afternoon. The asking price is $11 million, Miller said.
Gone are the giant Santa Claus statues festooned with weird religious slogans, the peepshow booths and the radio station broadcasting William E. “Father” Riker’s racist diatribes. The last of the commune’s disciples died or apparently moved away years ago.
Tom Stanton — reportedly the only full-time resident and self-appointed mayor — has run a glass blowing business in the town’s old post office for 30 years. The property is owned by three retired contractors who purchased it more than 40 years ago to develop the land into a recreational park, but never did, Miller said.
Holy City was created in 1919 by Riker, an ex-waiter who billed himself as the “Chief Comforter” and “Wisest Man on Earth.”
At its height in the mid-1920s, Riker’s commune had about 300 disciples and Holy City boasted a dance hall, an observatory, a bottling plant, a radio station and a zoo on the 180-acre property. Visitors were greeted by music blaring from red loudspeakers while visitors lined up for the 50 peepshow booths, which had titles such as “The Legs of Queen Elizabeth.”
Many of the Holy City buildings were reduced to rubble by fires in the mid-1950s and Riker lost control of his commune. The town disincorporated in 1959 and, in 1960, a San Jose company purchased it with plans to develop the land.